


The blueprints were too sad so we made them burn yellow

by Anihan (Nakagami)



Series: A Year of Fiction [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: But this is Moriarty so be prepared, Kidnapping and voluntary release, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakagami/pseuds/Anihan





	The blueprints were too sad so we made them burn yellow

Jim isn't the kind of man to call you by name. 

He might say your name, but that's not what he's actually saying. It's an epithet. 

He says, "Oh, _John,"_  but he doesn't mean John Watson, late of the Northumberland Fusiliers. He doesn't even mean someone named John. He's talking to a petite girl wearing a pure white summer dress, and she flinches at the sound of the kindness in his voice.

Because he doesn't mean John, the alternate pronunciation of her name, Johann: He means _John_. The alternate person he wanted her to be. 

"Oh, sweet thing," he says, and she doesn't look up from the breakfast table. It is safest not to make eye contact. He asks, "What's wrong?" and she doesn't believe for a moment that he would fix it even if she'd say it aloud.

He knows what's wrong. It's him. 

"I'm fine," she says, lies, and he knows it immediately, his expression growing dark. 

"Are you upset?" he asks, a hint of threat in his tone, and she chooses not to answer that, looking away. He puts both elbows on the dinner table, leans closer to her as if telling a secret. "Does it upset you to know that I will always be with you?" 

He says it like a promise, like reading off a script. He is, of course. The script is Johann's therapist's notes. She clenches her jaw and again, doesn't answer. 

"Are you angry at me?" he asks. 

Despite upholding her silence, Johann considers the question honestly. It doesn't feel like anger, at least. Not far from pity, but not far from fear either.

Jim straightens in his seat. His every expression is a caricature, a mask in the guise of true genuineness: The disdain is all real beneath it. He sneers, transforms the last word out of the perpetual sing-song tenor and into a stage whisper, an attack across the table: "Or are you just _ungrateful?"_

Johann flinches at the resultant quiet. "No," she denies. 

"No?" he repeats. Moriarty's eyes widen briefly, then curve, drooping in faux sadness. "I can tell when you lie, John, and you're lying right now. No, you're not very grateful at all. But you should be." 

The silence between them grows and Johann feels it like a proverbial string drawn taught. She searches frantically for something to say. Any answer to his question would only make him angry: He didn't need her, some kid, to affirm his assertions, and denying the truth, that she _was_ grateful to him, would only make him more cross. 

But he does like commentary. And questions. Providing an opportunity for him to show off could be her saving grace in this circumstance, so Johann grimaces and screws up her face until the expression on it could be identified as confusion.

She asks, "Why should I?"

Moriarty meets her gaze and his expression becomes naturally what Johann had affected in farce: _I'm confused,_ it says, _because shouldn't you already know?_ The result is a representation of his actual emotions, but to Johann? It looks fake. "Because I'm giving you a gift," he claims, "and I'm not giving you any restrictions on how to use it."

Johann's eyes fall to the results of his other gifts to her: bedding and a bed of her own, free movement within her room, clothes.... 

Clothes. Johann glares at the hem of the dress where it falls about her knees. "Of course," she says calmly, no inflection beyond the requisite anxiety, "I might have felt grateful if I had known that. Or if I knew what the gift was," she adds.

The room isn't large enough to contain Jim's energy. He stands, and he literally bounces about on the balls of his feet, pushing off the walls when he gets too close and launching himself toward where Johann is still seated. He stops just before her and waits until her eyes come up to meet his. "Your eyes are blue, you know," he claims. He says it like a new discovery.

After a moment of staring dumbly, Johann nods. "I know." She pauses. "Was that my gift?" 

"Time," he says without preamble.

And then, as if that was an explanation, he leaves.

 

 ~*~

 

 

"What the absolute fuck," she enunciates clearly, "was that about?" She believes in enunciation, even when no one is listening, but she's almost positive that he's just in the security office just around the corner, watching her on the CCTV. 

She stands and moves about restlessly, and eventually she goes to check the walls he had touched, looking to see if he had planted anything during his visit. Nothing. She checks his chair and finds nothing, not even a note pasted to the bottom. 

"He says that and just leaves," Johann complains, "as if I'm supposed to know what that means. Time! Everything takes time!" She's ranting by now, to the amusement of the guard next door, no doubt. "How _much_ time?" 

The kettle clicks off and Johann jumps. She hadn't realized that it had been on. 

Was that what he meant? She had time for a cup of tea, and then... then what? 

Anxiety skyrocketing, Johann focuses it into anger and pushes her way around the room, cleaning up the evidence of Jim's visit. "And what's "no restrictions" supposed to mean?" She snaps at a mug and it sits there calmly, like porcelain does, even though it is ceramic. "It's not like I could just walk out of here! I can't leave, and that's a restriction by _definition,"_  she shrieks. 

The noise breaks her rage. It echoes about the flat and Johann goes to make tea, hoping to dispel the atmosphere's chill. 

"This isn't a gift at all," she says, and it is purely for Moriarty's benefit now. God knows she's had enough practice talking to him through the security cameras by now. "It only makes me think about what I'm forbidden to have." 

It takes Jim a few minutes to answer. There's enough time for the tea to steep and the milk to be added, but his voice eventually comes on over the speakers embedded in the ceiling. He whispers, "Psst," and Johann rolls her eyes. He says, "The door's unlocked," and Johann's first reaction is to scoff. 

"No it's not," she wants to say.

She doesn't say it. Instead she walks over and tries the handle to the front door. 

It swings open. The breath leaves her lungs and forgets to return.

It is raining outside. She isn't wearing shoes. She isn't wearing anything at all that isn't primarily silk. For all of ten seconds, she freezes. Then she breathes in and thinks.

Time. Enough to get her shoes? 

Yes. 

Enough to pack?

Enough to get more fully dressed, maybe enough to leave for good? Johann is dizzy. She doesn't know if she can move fast enough but the thought, the opportunity, it's _fantastic._ She packs like a fiend and heads for the open door again, breathless, light-headed, hot and cold at once, _ecstatic,_ and-- 

Oh, God. She runs with only the mildest inclination of a destination. 

The feel of rain upon her scalp, it isn't like a shower at all. It soaks into her shoes, turning ballet slippers into muddy trainers in seconds. The golden archways of dying ivy herald the coming of winter-- but even though that thought doesn't sit well, because isn't ivy green all year round? Johann notices, she finds it hard to care. She finds it hard to do anything at all.

She has time. 

"It's limited," she tries to remind herself, panting face-first into the bark of a willow. "It's going to run out, and then it's over, all of it, everything--" she tries to stop the rising flood of elation. Tries. Fails. The mud soaks into her hosiery. An unfortunate fly flies down her throat and is choked on. Johann coughs and splutters and gives herself hiccoughs trying to wash away the taste using only rain water and gravity. 

When the spasms have passed and the girl could again breathe unaided, she stands alone in a park. She tilts her head back and watches, waiting, until rain clouds retreat and she feels the first touch of sun on her face in nearly two years. She waits until her breath comes easier and then she keeps waiting, but the elation never fades.

So, yes. Maybe it does feel a little bit like gratitude.


End file.
